Will an older Apple Keyboard(A1048) work with the M1 Mac Mini?

[crowe-t]

I have an older Apple Keyboard(A1048). Will it work with an M1 Mac Mini?

I really like the older style keyboard to type on and would like to be able to keep using it.

 

[Prorege1]

I guess so, but perhaps consider an upgrade, I'm very satisfied with the Keychron with Mac layout.

Keychron K4 Wireless Mechanical Keyboard (Version 2)

Keychron K4 (Version 2) Wireless Mechanical Keyboard. 96% Layout but Compact. Wireless or Wired. Bluetooth 5.1. For Mac and Windows. Optical or Gateron Switches. Connect up to 3 devices. Inclined bottom frame. 15+ RGB Backlight. Dedicated caps lock indicator light.

www.keychron.com

 

[BeatCrazy]

Sure, it will work just fine.

 

[Fomalhaut]

Is this a BlueTooth keyboard? If so, I have some 10-year-old Mac Bluetooth keyboards, and they work fine with the M1 Mini.

 

[crowe-t]

This is a plain wired keyboard.

 

[jazz1]

I guess so, but perhaps consider an upgrade, I'm very satisfied with the Keychron with Mac layout.

Keychron K4 Wireless Mechanical Keyboard (Version 2)

Keychron K4 (Version 2) Wireless Mechanical Keyboard. 96% Layout but Compact. Wireless or Wired. Bluetooth 5.1. For Mac and Windows. Optical or Gateron Switches. Connect up to 3 devices. Inclined bottom frame. 15+ RGB Backlight. Dedicated caps lock indicator light.

www.keychron.com

Any BlueTooth connection issues?

 

[Prorege1]

Bluetooth works fine. 90% of the time I do use it wired to an iMac.

 

[jalawton]

This is a plain wired keyboard.

I run student labs and have 50+ new 24" iMacs. I can say for a fact that some Apple wired keyboards will not work as desired. However, others will. Sadly they can be the same model A1243. I currently have a stack of about 10
A1243 keyboards that did not allow the mouse to work when the 24" iMac was turned on. These keyboards were plugged in directly to a USB-C to USB-A convertor. Luckily I have several keyboards from which I can exchange until I find one that works. Once I have found one that works, I am glad to say that it has yet to fail.

 

[jalawton]

Also I do have an A1048 working with the new 24" iMac.

 

[Fishrrman]

Assuming the wired keyboard you have is USB, just plug it in.

If it's even older, and is an "ADB" keyboard, I believe there are "ADB-to-USB" converter adapters. Might be hard to find these days...

 

[jalawton]

I just found it very strange that one A1243 keyboard would work and another just craps out (on startup). Now when that failed keyboard is plugged into a USB-A port that is on a multiport adapter, it would work fine. But that defeated the purpose that I was trying to achieve of leaving those USB ports on the multiport adapter for users to use.

 

[Boyd01]

Have had several of the old aluminum wired Apple Keyboards (I assume that's what is being discussed?) and always liked them. However, they could be pretty weird, even when new. One of them only worked on the left USB port of my 2013 MacBook Air. Then one day, without any apparent reason, it would no longer work on the left port but *would* work on the right port. Worked fine on any port of my 2012 Mini though.

Did some Googling at the time and found similar stories without much explanation. Later, I read that they were sensitive to voltage, and small variations could prevent them from working. Could that explain what you saw in the lab?